Tips, Tricks & Other Things I've Learned to Successfully Pay With Your Phone

This page is dedicated to posting the many things I've learned in my years of paying with phones that could potentially you get stuck with an error or awkward phone payment situation.

• If you have a Samsung Phone, hold it over the swipe even if they have an NFC antenna present. Chances are, it'll use MST to process the payment and that's just fine. If, by some chance, it chooses to use NFC to process, that's also just fine, but in my experience, MST is the more reliable and quicker method of payment. And, if you aim for MST first, your transaction is more likely to succeed overall regardless of the final transaction method the terminal accepts.
• I've gotten "Card Read I/O Error", what should I do??? The worst thing to do is to take your phone away from the terminal. Simply hold your phone at the terminal and wait for the transaction to process. I've already held my phone at the terminal for three consecutive error messages until the transaction finally processed after about 12 seconds of trying.
• I held my phone at the terminal, and nothing happened or is happening. What should I do? This could be due to several different reasons, but the most likely are:
  • The cashier didn't push the credit button. Get in the habit of announcing to the cashier "I'm going to pay with credit" as it typically jogs them into action of pushing a button their end. Also, always look to see if the card swipe has lights flashing or at least illuminated. Some payment terminals will not accept any form of payment until the cashier completes a task, or hits the credit button on their machine and those lights come on.
  • Same story, different timing: sometimes the payment terminal will take your phone payment whether it be MST or NFC, but the payment will stand in limbo until the cashier acts upon it. This prompts the "It doesn't look like that works here..." comment from the cashier, but in reality, they just have to hit the button on their machine. If you don't nudge them to hit their button or say "I'm paying with credit", eventually the transaction will time out, and it really will seem like the method does not work. Cashiers are usually easily triggered by seeing someone whip plastic out of their wallet, but not so much when you're holding a phone to their credit card terminal. Of note, it is almost always more fun when the cashier says that the transaction won't work right before they realize the problem is with them not hitting a button.
• You get an unexpected "Card method declined" or "Card not authorized" message. Are you using a credit card at a business that doesn't accept it? I've seen these messages only when I was trying to use my AMEX card at a business that did not process AMEX.
• No brainer: Make sure you have ample charge on your phone to start/complete a transaction. Recently went to use Samsung Pay at the local gas station, and was unable to initiate as my battery was 5% or lower. I believe 5% to be the battery threshold for most payment apps.
• We'll call this one the "Lowe's Tip": At Lowe's, expect to receive odd error messages and a payment declined -- the FIRST time you run a transaction on your phone. To combat this, go to Samsung Pay, choose your card, and use your authentication method to initiate a payment -- however, do NOT hold your phone to the payment terminal. Allow the transaction to time out on your phone and wait for the "Retry" arrow to appear. Retry the transaction and THEN hold your phone to the payment terminal. I've tried this a few times with success, and will begin to use it in locations where oddities have occurred.